"You can neither lie to a neighborhood park, nor reason with it. 'Artist's conceptions' and persuasive renderings can put pictures of life into proposed neighborhood parks or park malls, and verbal rationalizations can conjure up users who ought to appreciate them, but in real life only diverse surroundings have the practical power of inducing a natural, continuing flow of life and use."
-Jane Jacobs, "The Death and Life of Great American Cities"
It'll be interesting to see what the city does here; that is, if they do anything different at all. I will say this: it would've been nice for a little neighborhood input as to what local residents wanted at this spot. My uneducated guess is that there's somewhere between 10 to 20 people living on this block and within a few feet's walk of this corner. All of whom are within the age range of ~18 to ~40.
Instead of constructing it as a generic "green space" with benches, they could add some concrete or stone gaming tables (chess or checkers) as they'd be a nice addition to some of the more mundane pocket parks scattered around Downtown.
Or take it one step further and build a bocce court (they have these at Langone Park in Boston). Granted, I'm probably one of only a few people in the 'hood that would use that on the weekends in the summer, but at least it would demonstrate that Downtown has something else going on at its parks other than offering lunch-goers a place to sit for a few minutes on weekday afternoons.
PS: It's an old corner (and they're old streets) so it's interesting to see how deep that brick foundation went from the old building that was there. You can see right down into the basement.
